


Grounded

by DiscordantWords



Series: Post-Episode Vignettes [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e02 Deep Throat, Gen, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4675760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She likes him, she thinks, and the thought surprises her for a moment. Really, she does. But he is going to kill her career.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grounded

Scully floors the pedal, the needle on the speedometer hovering somewhere over eighty. Their rental car shudders with the effort, shimmying a bit in its lane. 

She very determinedly does not look over at Mulder where he is slumped against the window. Her immediate desire had been to check him over, to feel for injuries, to reassure herself that he was unharmed. That urge has since yielded to the overwhelming desire to wring his fucking neck. 

Her heart flutters like a trapped bird. Her hands clench on the steering wheel. She does not speak. 

She had held a government employee at gunpoint. She is a federal agent and she had taken a _hostage._ The gravity of what she has just done is at war with the surging adrenaline from _having done it_ and for a moment she thinks she might be sick. She lifts her foot off the gas, slowing to a more reasonable speed. 

She glances over at him, finally, pressing her lips into a tight line as she takes him in. His hair is mussed, his clothes rumpled, his eyes wide and glassy. He looks like a vagrant, like someone of questionable sanity, nothing at all like a federal agent. 

She has no idea what she wants to say. 

_Are you all right?_

_What the_ fuck _were you thinking?_

_Did they hurt you?_

_I just took a hostage, Mulder, I just took a hostage and arranged some kind of-- prisoner exchange-- like something out of a movie and it_ worked _I can’t believe it fucking_ worked _, and what do we do now--_

"Scully," Mulder's voice sounds hoarse. He blinks at her, as if surprised to see her driving. 

The dull look in his eyes makes her think of Lieutenant Colonel McLennen, staring into space while fashioning fly fishing lures from his own hair, and she has to bite back on a bark of sharp, ugly laughter. Oh, god, this is her life now, isn't it? 

"We have to see Colonel Budahas," he says. "Before they get to him. She was right, Scully, his wife was right." 

He seems coherent, if sluggish. She shuts her eyes briefly, relief washing over her. 

"No. We're getting on the first plane out of here," she says.

"Scully." 

She looks over at him again. He is holding his head up, staring straight at her, his eyes struggling to focus on her. His pupils are huge. She wonders what they have given him, what they've done to him. She isn't sure she wants to know. 

Against her better judgment, she pulls off of the highway. 

*

It is a waste of time, of course. 

Scully can see it in the tense, closed off expression on Mrs. Budahas's face before she even says a word. 

The door is closed in their faces, and she cannot help but think that this will not be the first time. If they still have jobs, that is.

She is going to be _pissed_ if her career is over because her lunatic partner decided to go stargazing on a secret military base. 

Mulder settles back into the passenger seat and does not protest as she navigates towards the airport. She thinks about the men in suits, the unregistered car, the unnecessary punch to the kidneys one of them had dealt Mulder while they ransacked their belongings. 

He's wrong about aliens, she thinks, wrong about UFOs, but there is obviously _something_ going on. She finds it unsettling, creeping into her bones like a winter chill. She thinks of her father, of the proud line of his shoulders in his uniform. The Scullys are patriots, always have been. 

They were lucky, she knows. He always came home. 

_What if he hadn't?_

_What if he had, but had come back_ changed _, like Colonel Budahas?_

_Wouldn’t she want the truth?_

She sighs, readjusts her hands on the steering wheel, risks one more glance at Mulder. He is either asleep or feigning it against the window, eyes closed. His fingers are curled around the door handle, as though reassuring himself of an escape route. 

She likes him, she thinks, and the thought surprises her for a moment. Really, she does. But he is going to kill her career. Their second case together and he has her operating outside the law, taking hostages, making demands, all because of some blurry photographs and lights in the sky. 

And yet. 

There is something. There is _something._

A classmate had once told her she was like a dog with a bone. He had not meant it as a compliment. But she had always had an innate curiosity, combined with the lessons her father had always imparted to _see things through_ and this—this hasn't yet been seen through. There is more to learn. More to understand. Because as it stands, everything about this case has been incomprehensible. 

A sane person would fly back to D.C. and request, no, _demand_ a transfer. Would tell them everything they wanted to hear about Mulder. That he is crazy. That he is dangerous. That he has no regard for the law and that he is willing to flagrantly risk his life and that of others in pursuit of his own personal causes. 

She looks over at him again. He looks, if possible, even more disheveled than he had before. He is frowning, lost in his head, and she has no doubts whatsoever that he would seize the first available opportunity to turn the car around and go back and harangue Mrs. Budahas some more. 

She thinks about the weight of the gun in her hand, the fact that she'd been taught never to draw unless she was prepared to use it. 

She thinks about the not-reporter, the sour smell of his sweat filling the car as they'd driven back to the base, about the way her hand had not shaken while pointing her weapon. She had been prepared to use it. 

She would not have hesitated. 

The government did not send spies to follow crazy men. They did not kidnap them and—and—scramble their brains. Mulder was right about something. She thinks, no, she _knows_ that she cannot walk away without finding out what that something is. How deep it goes. 

She is going to see this through. 

And if that makes her something less than entirely sane, she thinks she still looks pretty damn grounded compared to the man sitting next to her.


End file.
